The genre of journalistic investigations is now very popular. Also it is sometimes so dangerous. Not for nothing after all "wordsmiths" joke: at us journalistic investigation quite often finishes the pathologist - anatomic. The sad example of that is murder of the observer Russian "The new newspaper" Anna Politkovskaya in October of last year. But journalists will be always engaged in investigations as it was done by their well-known colleague Vladimir Burtsev at the beginning of the last century.

At the beginning of the last century "The Odessa leaf" which publisher demanded from reporters to undress in imitation walnut local officials became famous for custom-made exposures. "To undress is their craft, - Vladimir Korolenko laughed, - and they ask before who needs to be despised, and later look for reasons".

But were in pre-revolutionary Russia and other journalists. The same Korolenko, working in the Kazan newspaper "Volzhsky Vestnik", I carried out a series of brilliant journalistic investigations, and not so by request. "Since December, 1899, - he remembered, - I strongly was fond of local interests. And local interests are almost entirely plunders, plunders, plunders". Vlas Doroshevich was other master of journalistic investigation. Not casually the Minister of Justice Muravyev in 1908 called Doroshevich "the uninvited defender, the second prosecutor, the fourth judge, the thirteenth barrister". Vlas Doroshevich formulated one of the most important principles of journalistic investigation: "Don't trust. Check. Be convinced. Without having convinced, don't risk to write. Often it will appear opposite. Trust nothing. Don't trust a grief, don't trust suffering, words, tears, groans. Trust the eyes. Remain the investigator, quiet, passionless, all checking, in everything doubting, all weighing".

Prisoner of the queen of the Victoria

But the greatest popularity the sensational investigations in pre-revolutionary Russia was gained "By Sherlock Holmes of the Russian revolution" Vladimir Lvovich Burtsev. He was born on November 17, 1862 in area Aleksandrovsky Zakaspiyskoy's fort in a family штабс - the captain. Having ended a gymnasium in Kazan, in 1882 I arrived on the physicist - mathematical faculty of Sankt - the Petersburg university, and at the end of the same year for the first time I got to prison for participation in a student's meeting. Accepted again on law department of the Kazan university, Burtsev in 1885 was arrested for distribution of illegal literature and after year of imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress was banished to the Irkutsk province. From the link I ran abroad. In 1890 Burtsev went to England where began to issue the Narodovolets magazine.

After issue of the third issue of the magazine with article "Down with the tsar! " Burtsev was arrested and accused by an English jury of instigation to murder of the crowned person. The court took place on February 11, 1898 Burtsev the tipografshchik issuing the magazine, by two months was sentenced to one and a half years of imprisonment, and. Burtsev caught even that over a door of his apartment the leaf on which it was written allegedly hung: "Death I reign! "

It was the mistake. If the tsar Alexander III, having sent the student Burtsev into exile, I made of it the revolutionary, the queen Victoria took care of that Burtsev became the professional journalist. The Narodovolets magazine was the amateur edition which had insignificant circulation, and the historian - the revolutionary magazine "Byloye" which Burtsev soon started issuing, gained fantastic popularity. Staff of department of police was compelled to recognize that this magazine is incomparably more dangerous, than "Narodovolets".

Awful suspicions

In Burtsev's edition all data not only on the past, but also on the present were flown down. Once to it the person presented by Mikhaylovsky came. It was the employee of the Warsaw security office Mikhail Bakay. He told that in party leadership of members of Just Russia there is an agent of the okhranka, known Raskin under a pseudonym. "One for another, - Burtsev remembered, - I began to study biographies of leaders, investigating their past is attentive and getting into all trifles of their present activity. Hard, painfully was to do it, but I nevertheless, reluctantly, did it. The choice wasn't... All without exception seemed to me faultless, pure, above any suspicion.However, I couldn't get off painful, intrusive idea which with any strange curiosity, almost with fear, was constantly attracted to one of them, taking the highest, most responsible place in party".

It was one of heads of the fighting organization of party of members of Just Russia Evno Fishelevich Azef (into Russian of manners him named Evgeny Filippovich). He was born in 1869 in Rostov-on-Don in a family of the tailor. Having become in youth the member of one of revolutionary circles, I was engaged in distribution of leaflets, I came into the view of police and it was compelled to run abroad. In Germany Azef entered the polytechnical institute. Money for study and for life didn't suffice. In 1893 it sent to the Petersburg department of police the letter with the offer of the services as the informer. Then Evno received the first characteristic issued by police: "The person fairly clever, very crafty, as the agent can bring essential benefit as it is self-interested". Salary to it appointed at a rate of 50 one rubles.

For operating time on an okhranka Azef gave out a great number of the companions, but at the same time prepared 28 acts of terrorism. Murders of the minister Plehve were registered for it, in particular, and Moscow the general - the governor grand duke Sergey Aleksandrovich, attempt at the general Trepov, on Kiev the general - the governor Kleygels, Moscow the general - the governor Dubasov, on the Minister of Internal Affairs Durnovo and even on the head of political investigation Rachkovsky. It is natural that when Burtsev reported about the suspicions to members of Just Russia, those not only didn't believe him, but also threatened to kill for distribution of obviously false hearings about is crystal the honest person with all the heart devoted to business of revolution.

Evno Azef's exposure

Burtsev, confident in the correctness, decided to get indications of the only witness to which words revolutionaries had to believe. The former director of the department of police Alexey Lopukhin known for was this person that on this post it prepared an extensive analytical note about development of revolutionary movement in Russia. In it he specified that fight against sedition by one police methods not only is senseless, but also is dangerous as promotes distribution of this sedition. In February, 1905, after murder of the grand duke Sergey Aleksandrovich by Ivan Kalyaev, the head of department of police Lopukhin was discharged of a position.Six hours Burtsev literally tried to persuade Lopukhin, telling that everything that knew about the provoker Raskin. Eventually the former director of the department of police said the phrase: "I don't know any Raskin, and the engineer Evno Azef several times saw".

But also it didn't convince members of Just Russia. Burtsev was compelled to threaten that will publish all materials in the magazine. Being afraid for the life, he also offered that it betrayed to a revolutionary court of honor. As judges chose what authority on the revolutionary environment was unshakable, - the theorist of anarchism Pyotr Kropotkin and long-term prisoners of Shlisselburg Vera Zasulich and Herman Lopatin. But also the court couldn't establish Burtsev's correctness. Vera Figner after court session declared to the journalist: "You the awful person, you slandered the hero. You need to be shot only". Burtsev's life literally hung by a thread, but at Azef handed over nerves - together with the chief of the Petersburg security office Gerasimov he visited Lopukhin and demanded from that to write a denial. But Alexey Lopukhin coming from an old noble family, arrived differently - he sent to the Minister of Internal Affairs Stolypin the letter in which asked to protect it from importunate agents of an okhranka.

The text of the letter was published in London "Tayms" then in emigre press there was a short message: "The party of socialists - revolutionaries informs party companions that the engineer Evgeny Filippovich Azef, 38 years (the party nicknames Thick, Ivan Nikolaevich, Valentin Kuzmich), is convicted of the intercourses with the Russian political police and appears the provoker".

With the Lenin mandate

After Azef's exposure of the journalist just didn't carry on hands. Emigrant literature with pathos peculiar to it called Burtsev "the knight errant of a sad image", "The oat-flakes, undertaken to clear Augean stables" and even "the nightman of political parties". Burtsev got the heading "Spies, Traitors, Provokers" where published tens names of agents of an okhranka in the Common cause magazine. The journalist wasn't included essentially into one party and was absolutely incorruptible. "To go on any compromises to the right or on the left I can't: the neck doesn't bend", - he complained later in the letter to the general Denikin. Therefore to it addressed both right, and left. In April, 1912, for example, the mandate signed by Lenin in whom it was spoken was issued to Burtsev: "The Central Committee RSDRP under the agreement with companion Burtsev made the commission on provocation investigation in the ranks of RSDRP.Members of this commission are companion Burtsev and companions Nikolay Vasilyevich and Yury". The investigation undertaken by Burtsev, yielded unexpected result - Malinovsky, Lenin's favourite, the member of the State Duma from Bolshevist fraction appeared the agent of an okhranka. By the way, Burtsev not only exposed provokers, but also protected people from наветов. It, for example, for many years defended a reputation of the Russian counterspy general Batyushin.

In 1914 Burtsev urged revolutionaries to support Russia in war against Germany and went home, but on border was arrested and forwarded in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then sentenced to a Siberian exile. There he, by the way, got acquainted with Stalin and Sverdlov. After February revolution Burtsev received incontestable certificates of that the head of Provisional government Kerensky conducts separate peace negotiations with Germany, and immediately published this information on pages of the newspaper "Obshchee Delo". Business came to an end that negotiations were broken, and the newspaper … is closed.

On October 25, 1917, in day of storm of the Winter Palace, Burtsev issued the first and only issue of the Nashe Obshchee Delo newspaper. Its editorial began words: "Citizens, save Russia! ". Number was confiscated - this time according to Trotsky's order, and the journalist is arrested on the same day and again the Peter and Paul Fortress bastion in which he sat both at Aleksandra III, and at Nicolae II pleased in Trubetskoy. Burtsev, thus, became the first political prisoner of the Soviet Russia - ministers of Provisional government joined it later. Among them, by the way, there was also the former director of the department of police Beletsky from whom the journalist didn't move a step.

Bolsheviks put Burtsev, of course, not for article. The matter is that in July, 1917 it published the list of surnames of 159 emigrants who have come back to Russia through the territory of Germany. Burtsev was absolutely sure: "Revolution on October 25, 1917, overthrown the power of Provisional government and established the power of Councils, was made by Germans through their agents, on their money and according to their instructions".

Call in Gestapo

In February, 1918 according to the order of the people's commissar of justice left member of Just Russia Steinberg Burtsev was unbound and immediately left the country. In France it renewed the edition of "Common cause" and began to reveal already agents of GPU.The journalist, for example, established the persons involved in kidnapping of the general of Kutepov and to murder of the general Miller, and also declared that the monarchic organization "Trest" operating in Russia actually is created by Bolsheviks Menzhinsky and Artuzov.

Burtsev lived in extreme poverty. One of his acquaintances testified: "The former editor of "Past" and "Common cause", the former unmasker Azefa, whose name then bypassed newspapers of the whole world, I lived on the first floor in not simply poor, but the beggarly tiny apartment: room with a kitchenette. The disorder and neubrannost in the apartment were utter. Books, newspapers, packs of "Common cause" filled up everything. Vladimir Lvovich was engaged in one: fight against the Bolshevism, even if alone! "

At the beginning of 30-x years Burtsev as the witness participated in the Bern process on which well-known "Protocols the sionskikh of wise men" incontestably proved subfalsehood. In 1938 it published in Paris the book "Protocols the sionskikh of wise men. The proved forgery" with an unambiguous subtitle "Rachkovsky fabricated "Protocols", and Hitler gave them a world fame". No wonder that after occupation of France the journalist was called in Gestapo. It, however, didn't confuse him. On memoirs of the daughter of the writer Kuprin, "Burtsev continued to go tirelessly on the become empty, intimidated city, worried, argued and proved that Russia will win". It was its last journalistic investigation - on August 21, 1942 Vladimir Burtsev died of blood poisoning.

The product information Agency is his property. The right of ownership is protected by current legislation of Ukraine. Article 26 of the law of Ukraine "On information agencies"). Publication and dissemination of the content of the materials posted on the website Prestupnosti.net (in whatever form and by whatever technical means it has not carried out) without the written consent of the rightholder and reference to the source is prohibited.